Chaos Magic Read Online Free PDF

London. Again with no signs of violence about her person – and again leading to the investigating officer’s rather feeble conclusion: that drugs may have been involved. These two facts gave some credence to Darren Sprawl’s ravings. For what else could they be? Reasoned the detective who had always relied on procedural police work, plain and simple.
    Detective Z had cordoned off the memory of those lost days when Lorna had first disappeared; they were too painful to revisit. When he had returned to the police force after his ‘breakdown’ , he had simply thrown himself into the day-to-day activity of his job and never really put his head above the parapet; content to be a foot soldier – fighting crime and punching the clock.
    He dimly recalled the character in Old Mortlake that Sprawl had referred to – a crazy old man called Alan, painting the railings around the churchyard; he too had alluded to a sinister and shadowy oranisation. But those were troubled times for the detective when his mind became untethered as his grief for the loss of Lorna swept away his very reason.
    Detective Z was resentful of the encroachment of the past into the present. And yet a persistent feeling lurked just beyond the grasp of his conscious mind, like an alarm bell ringing far far away. Therefore at five PM he suddenly threw his skepticism aside and took the underground to Embankment Station, walked along the Strand and turned onto Waterloo Bridge just as the streetlights began to glow and the passing vehicles turn on their headlights. He quickened his pace but there seemed to be the whole world and his brother pressing in a frantic throng along every available yard of the footpath. By the time he approached the centre of the bridge it was almost dark, the last rays of the sun were glinting on the tops of the very tallest buildings.
    Studying the crowd, there was no one who resembled Lorna and so he pressed on towards the centre of the bridge, all the time wondering if he was walking into a trap but clear in his mind that if there was any possibility of finding Lorna, here in the dusk, above the Thames, that he would come to this spot every night for the rest of his life if necessary.
    He wished he had asked Darren Sprawl some proper questions. In fact the detective was more than a little ashamed of himself – Detective forgets to ask vital questions – it did not sound too good; now realizing that he had been too wrapped up in himself to even take the man seriously, and yet here he was, on Waterloo Bridge at sunset, just as instructed by the enigmatic Mister Sprawl. He stopped walking suddenly and someone bumped him from behind, the detective did not apologize as his attention was elsewhere – there was a woman in a blue anorak on the opposite side of the road – he could not see her face but she moved in a way that was familiar to him. With an increasing sense of urgency he looked for a break in the long line of cars and buses; he needed to cross quickly because she was walking away – towards the South Bank. By now the sky was deep violet and only to the west was there any luminescence from the departing sun, the preponderance of light was now man-made. He spotted a chance and stepped off the pavement and immediately had to leap back as a cyclist almost mowed him down – shouting ‘idiot’ as he veered and then sped away. A hand grabbed his shoulder and he turned around, savagely reacting to the intrusion.
    “Can I suggest you cross the road using the pedestrian crossing, sir?”
    It was a uniformed policeman of all things – obviously thinking Detective Z was a moronic tourist with no understanding of basic safety protocols.
    In one smooth movement Detective Z shrugged off the restraining hand, pulled out his ID and spoke firmly to the concerned but misguided young man.
    “I am following a suspect; I need you to stop the traffic for fifteen seconds so I can cross the road. Can you do that for me?” asked the Detective